Money Matters 15: Utilities

[lo95]

1. Do you do level or even billing on any utilities? Which ones if so or why not if you don't?

2. Do you make a conscious effort to get water and/or electric/gas down? If so, what do you do?

3. Out of curiosity, anyone on well water? If so, are you able to drink it or do you filter/ do bottle? I'm not familiar with it, but some of the houses we saw are on well, which made me wonder if it's cheaper and/or if there are more issues with it.

4. What about fireplaces? Obviously it's spring now, but anyone rely a lot on a stove or fireplace for heat? Any tips if so?

[namastebiotches]

1. I'm not sure what this means 

2. We never go above the minimum amount they charge on water/sewer so not really to water. As far as electric (we don't have gas), I'm always turning the heat down in rooms that don't need it & turning lights off when leaving a room, etc. Pretty minimal effort. Same goes for AC in summer but summer bills are always cheaper but we mostly run heat/cooling (minus in extreme temps) at night.

3. No. My only experience was at my parent's house when they first moved to PA when I was a teenager. I never drank the water out of the faucet & it often smelled funny. :/

4. Wish we could answer this question. We have a fireplace but it's nonfunctioning (it's set up to be a wood burning but the roof opening was closed up at some point.) If it were, that would definitely be our main source of heating during the winter. I love a wood burning fireplace.

[lo95]

1. Do you do level or even billing on any utilities? Which ones if so or why not if you don't? No level billing here. For a 1,000 sq foot house our utilities are sky high and using the average bill for the year would mean we would lose out on those (rare) cheap months in the spring and fall. It's a head game for me. lol

2. Do you make a conscious effort to get water and/or electric/gas down? If so, what do you do? Gah. No. We are awful about this. And we have a leaky tub which doesn't help.

3. Out of curiosity, anyone on well water? If so, are you able to drink it or do you filter/ do bottle? I'm not familiar with it, but some of the houses we saw are on well, which made me wonder if it's cheaper and/or if there are more issues with it.
No, just city. And it seems so expensive. But again...tub... lol That said, I will say we still don't drink a lot of tap water because it has a weird taste. Definitely still make DD's bottles with bottled too.

4. What about fireplaces? Obviously it's spring now, but anyone rely a lot on a stove or fireplace for heat? Any tips if so?
The house we are looking to purchase has a fireplace, but since it's gas I feel like that doesn't really save money, right? Sigh... In-laws have a stove and literally heat the entire house off of it. Which is saying something because it's a huge house.

[brachysira]

1. I don't think so. DH pays these bills.

2. Here in the cold north, many of my former roommates wanted to keep the heat at 60 or so...brrr. We don't do that. It is useful to have an energy assessment by your energy company and some places will discount if you make improvements, etc. When we bought our house, they had recently added a ton of insulation and it was a pretty low consumption house for it's age. Need to do some door sealing or something, as you can feel some cold air coming in there. DH does not turn off lights much so I am always following him doing that. Kids and I barely bathe but that has more to do with overwhelmed parenting that conservation. It is good to unplug TVs, etc. but we have such a ridiculous set-up that I don't even know if I could do that without messing things up...

3. no

4. We have an electric fireplace but it doesn't put out much heat and we rarely use it b/c of the kids. I once stayed a few days in a house entirely heated by a stove, but the heat wasn't well-dispersed and it was kind of sooty. I would worry about the long-term exposure. Plus, you have do have wood.

[ashiscute]

1. We have even billing on gas and electric. Not sure if it's worth it but H thinks it is.

2. Not really

3. Nope

4. We have one but it is not usable.

[tincupchalice]

1. Do you do level or even billing on any utilities? Which ones if so or why not if you don't? Nope.

2. Do you make a conscious effort to get water and/or electric/gas down? If so, what do you do? We do some stuff to keep our electric bill down. The main thing is that we run evap coolers (one downstairs, one in each bedroom) in the spring and fall to delay using the AC. We live in the Mojave, so AC can be a pretty hefty bill. This saves us 4ish months of AC, the evap coolers paid for themselves in something like three months, so significant savings.

3. Out of curiosity, anyone on well water? If so, are you able to drink it or do you filter/ do bottle? I'm not familiar with it, but some of the houses we saw are on well, which made me wonder if it's cheaper and/or if there are more issues with it. No well water here.

4. What about fireplaces? Obviously it's spring now, but anyone rely a lot on a stove or fireplace for heat? Any tips if so? Not really cold weather place here, but in the winter I'll run the fake fireplace to offset the need for heat.

[westiemom]

1. I'm not sure what this means

2. We sign up for new gas and electricity each time our contract expires so we can go with the cheapest rate. Some contracts last 3 mos and some a whole year depending. We also try not to leave on lights, run ac as low when no one is home, etc

3. No well water for us

4. I depend on the fireplace a lot during winter. We don't get that cold where I live so the fireplace is perfect for taking a bit of the chill off but not needing to run the heater.

[mommabakes]

1) No.

2) I do try to keep our electric bill as low as possible. Basically just by keeping the house a bit cooler, it's set at 65.

3) We have well water. I much prefer it, taste wise. It's all I know honestly, and there's not a whole lot of maintenance. We have good water, but a lot of this depends on your area I believe. We do have a water softening system, due to high iron.

4) We have a wood burning fireplace, but don't use it. For us, it's not worth the hassle of chopping wood and having the fireplace properly cleaned regularly.

[mishy2010]

1. Do you do level or even billing on any utilities? Which ones if so or why not if you don't?
Nope. They always over estimate our bills and I'd rather just pay different amounts now instead of waiting to get my money back.

2. Do you make a conscious effort to get water and/or electric/gas down? If so, what do you do?
Kind of, I make sure to stay conscious of our thermostat and turning off lights. Our company lets you look at usage by the day/hour so you can see when you are using the most.
Our water bill was much higher last cycle bc I was taking like three showers a day during my last month pregnant. That was worth it lol.

3. Out of curiosity, anyone on well water? If so, are you able to drink it or do you filter/ do bottle? I'm not familiar with it, but some of the houses we saw are on well, which made me wonder if it's cheaper and/or if there are more issues with it.
H's family is on a well and we used to have well. We do not drink it, even filtered.

4. What about fireplaces? Obviously it's spring now, but anyone rely a lot on a stove or fireplace for heat? Any tips if so?
We have a gas fireplace in our basement that heats up down there really well. I prefer real to gas though.

[mrsmuq]

1. Do you do level or even billing on any utilities? Which ones if so or why not if you don't?
Even billing on electric because it's offered. I would on water but not possible. Also not possible for heating fuel or propane because that would lock me into a contract where I'd be paying a helluva lot more than I should. Our Netflix/Hulu/internet/mobile costs are the same each month (do those count as utilities?).

2. Do you make a conscious effort to get water and/or electric/gas down? If so, what do you do?
We have all energy saver lighting. When the appliances need replacing, they'll be energy saver. Try to use lights as little as possible. Price shop heating fuel. We pay a pittance for water.


3. Out of curiosity, anyone on well water? If so, are you able to drink it or do you filter/ do bottle? I'm not familiar with it, but some of the houses we saw are on well, which made me wonder if it's cheaper and/or if there are more issues with it.
I grew up on well water, but we have "city" water here (it's really from a sole source aquifer). We filter because, well, our water tastes gross from our pipes. 


4. What about fireplaces? Obviously it's spring now, but anyone rely a lot on a stove or fireplace for heat? Any tips if so? Does an outdoor fire pit count?

[Deleted]

1. Do you do level or even billing on any utilities? Which ones if so or why not if you don't?
I guess even billing from your description. They read the usage and send us the bill.

2. Do you make a conscious effort to get water and/or electric/gas down? If so, what do you do?
I don't worry about our water bill. We pretty much pay the minimum on it, although we do have a pool so it does go up in the summer when it gets too low. We are saving a bunch of money on our electric bill though. We replaced our ac units last summer, and it cut our bill almost in half.

3. Out of curiosity, anyone on well water? If so, are you able to drink it or do you filter/ do bottle? I'm not familiar with it, but some of the houses we saw are on well, which made me wonder if it's cheaper and/or if there are more issues with it.
No well water.

4. What about fireplaces? Obviously it's spring now, but anyone rely a lot on a stove or fireplace for heat? Any tips if so?
We have a fireplace but we've never used it because I really dislike them. I find that the room is always drafty, wasps come in the house from the fireplace, and it take up a whole wall that I can't use for anything else.

[vettymama]

1. Umm not sure what this means. We have a meter?

2. Not really. Shut water off while we brush teeth, don't leave lights on, etc. We plan on putting geo-thermal in the new house.

3. We do have a well. I grew up on well water so the taste is fine for me but we do have a filter system.

4. No. We have both fuel heat and a heat pump though.

[ashiscute]

FYI- even billing means that your gas and electric company uses your previous usage and gives you a monthly bill that is the same amount each month. The normal is your company reads your meter and gives you a monthly bill based on your actual usage.

The benefit of even billing is you don't have to pay a ton in those winter months when you're bill jumps. And also, for budgeting you know exactly what you'll pay each monthly. The negative is you don't get the financial break in the spring and fall.